Carrie Fisher: A life in pictures
- Published
Carrie Fisher was born into showbusiness. Her father, Eddie Fisher, was a singer and her mother, Debbie Reynolds, a Hollywood film star.
She decided early on to follow her parents into the entertainment industry, making her first stage appearance at the age of 15 in a Broadway show alongside her mother.
Fisher made her big screen debut in the 1975 film Shampoo but it was in Star Wars two years later that she achieved fame as Princess Leia alongside Harrison Ford, left, and Mark Hamill.
In her recent memoir she revealed for the first time that as a 19-year-old actress, she had an affair with co-star Harrison Ford, who was then married. The affair lasted three months.
Fisher married the singer Paul Simon in 1983 after a five-year relationship, but they divorced just a year later.
She also had a three-year relationship with talent agent Bryan Lourd which resulted in the birth of her daughter, Billie Lourd.
The actress had a long history of health problems. She underwent treatment for cocaine addiction in the mid-1980s and also suffered from bipolar disorder, experiences she used in her semi-autobiographical novels.
Later in life, she earned a reputation revising and polishing screenplays by other writers.